


So I Win (Frostbite)

by monsterq



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lucifer's Cage, M/M, Post Swan Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 12:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterq/pseuds/monsterq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He falls and he falls and he thinks: not this again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So I Win (Frostbite)

**Author's Note:**

> Written 12/3/12. More detailed warnings in end notes.

            He falls and he falls and he thinks: not this again.

           

            The impact jars him out of Sam’s body.  He feels sick, hot, the way he thinks it might feel to be feverish.  It’s always a few degrees too warm down here, as if the energy he wrapped himself in when he was the Lightbringer folded in on itself and grew, once he shed it.  And damn, but he got used to it up there, even though he promised himself he wouldn’t—used to the way his chill was given room to spread and cool him, rather than forever whipped away by the stifling heat.

            He takes a few deep breaths.  He will not panic.

            “Brother,” comes a voice, and with it that surge of hope and love that Lucifer can never squash.  Then the bitter sickness of betrayal, always.  Another layer now.

            “Michael,” he says.  “I admit, this is…not the result I was hoping for.”  He looks over.  Michael, too, has left his vessel, and is watching him in the raw, unfinished form of his grace.

            Lucifer can’t do it like this.  He can’t—it’s too much like before, millennia ago, the days he saw Michael and felt only love.  It’s too easy to see that Michael, the Michael he used to be, in his grace. 

            He fashions himself a human body, hoping Michael will follow his example.  Almost to his own surprise, he finds himself recreating Nick’s visage—it’s familiar.  Not quite like a human’s comfortable sweatshirt or old slippers, as he’s never really lost the itch that comes with shaping himself to look like _them—_ but good enough.  For this, he’ll take what he can get.

            “We’re in your cage?” says Michael, and to Lucifer’s relief, he, too, shapes himself into a human.  It’s a costume Lucifer doesn’t recognize, and he wonders if Michael’s worn it before, and when, and how.  Then he forces himself to stop.

            “Well, yeah,” he says.  “Hey, I think maybe you’re dedicating a little too much brain space to the obedience thing if—”

            “Don’t vex me,” Michael says, and oh, there it is, the stiff Sunday school teacher that Lucifer has always hated.  He used to be able to tease it out of him, joke and bother him until he laughed.  Somehow, he doesn’t think that’ll work right now.

            “Hey, but what else is there to do, big bro?” he asks.  “We can’t kill each other down here, you know.  There’s nothing but time, and let me tell you, we have time.”

            “No,” says Michael.  “Well, yes, for you, but I’m leaving.  Soon.”

            Lucifer looks around, ostentatiously wrinkling his brow.  “I don’t see the elevator.”

            Michael looks at him like he’s stupid, and really, that’s rich.  “Father will let me out.”

            And oh.  Damn, Lucifer hadn’t realized quite how far it went, the blind devotion, the—the faith.  Does he really—but of course he does.  He's Michael.  A few thousand years can't change that. 

            “That’s an interesting theory,” he says.  “He’ll let you out.  As soon as he checks everything else off his to-do list, because he’s a busy man, isn’t he?  I mean, these days you can hardly scratch yourself without Father showing up, wherever you go, you’re just tripping over him—”

            “Do not mock me,” Michael grits between his teeth.  And Lucifer remembers that kind of anger, that kind of fear, of hurt.  He had time to get familiar with it, very familiar.  Thickening the shell of hot anger over the pain.  And then the cold anger over the hot.  Sometimes when Lucifer is alone, he looks inside himself and he thinks he can almost see the glow, the burning heat, those first embers under all that ice—but here’s Michael, barely introduced to that scorching sort of rage.  Burning his chubby baby fingers.  Well, he has time.  They have time.

            “Brother,” he says softly, almost gently, “he’s not coming.  Father’s not coming for you.  You may as well get used to it.”

            Michael only sends him a searing glare and retreats to the opposite wall, as far away from Lucifer as he can get.

            Well, let it never be said of Lucifer that he doesn’t know when to quit.

            He looks around, trying not to see the all-too-familiar confines of the cage as what they are, because if he recognizes it, if he realizes what it means, he’ll panic, and who will that help?  So he lets his gaze wander over the walls, just appreciating the sheer artistry of it all, and then Adam, crumpled on the floor, breathing shallowly and too fast, and Sam, sitting up and staring into space, his eyes flat and endless.

            Well.  Humans.  He was wrong, he realizes, and he doesn’t even mind—there’s more in the cage than eternity, this time around.

 

 

            Sam always screams for his brother when Lucifer hurts him, and it ignites something inside his chest so he can barely breathe, think, do anything but _want_ in the same hot, broken way he thought he trained out of himself centuries ago.  _Want_ to peel away Sam’s skin.  _Want_ to make him scream and scream until his voice gives out.  _Want_ to teach Sam, to show him, that his big brother won’t come through, won’t save him, doesn’t care.  _Want_ what Sam has, that unflinching love, that belief, that—well.

            He wants to destroy Sam almost as much as he wants to pulverize Dean, and it’s been a while since he spent his energy worrying about the things that he can’t have.

           

 

            “Daddy’s not coming,” says Lucifer.  “He’s not coming, you’re all alone with me, me and you and the cage, so play with me, come on.”

            Michael doesn’t respond, just stares forward, jaw clenched.

            “He’s not coming.  You’re stuck here, big bro, and believe it or not, I still love you.  So maybe…”

            “Don’t.”

            “Don’t what?” Lucifer says.  He smiles.  His heart sinks into his stomach.

            “Don’t try to make _friends_ with me, Lucifer.  We’ve both come too far.  You’ve done too much for us to be anything but enemies.”

            “We could,” Lucifer says.  “We could, if you’d just try.  I told you, it doesn’t have to be like this, you don’t have to do it like this.  If you would only try.”

            “Maybe,” Michael says.  “But I don’t want to.”

           

 

            It’s clear to Lucifer that Sam likes to think he’s prepared for his fate.  Lucifer takes great pleasure in disabusing him of that notion, in watching his resigned stoicism crumble.

            His favorite part is the way Sam whimpers, after he’s too tired to scream but before his voice is all worn through. 

            “Sammy,” he whispers later, when he’s sated and curled around Sam’s body, pulling him flush against his borrowed flesh.  “You think you’re ready.  You think you’ve lost your fear of pain, but you haven’t, Sammy.  I can tell you that for certain.  And you know I’d never lie to you.”

             He wouldn’t, either.  Never has, never will.

 

 

            

**Author's Note:**

> Implied torture and rape of Sam by Lucifer. Terrible mental health for all parties. Emotional, ambiguously one-sided Lucifer/Michael, sans sex or romance.


End file.
